Christine Deavel“Held in Place”My part in the musical would be small, but I was to play a flute and die near the end. Though I was unprepared, I was unafraid. I was eager, eager to participate. When should I die?, I asked my fellow actors. You'll know, they said.

In the class, I danced with vigor and skill with a woman who was not skillful. I am wasted on you!, I cried, not meaning to be arrogant but becoming overwhelmed by how lithe and quick I felt. I danced by myself. Are you doing the shuffle step?,the teacher asked. Sort of!, I exclaimed, and discovered I was buoyant. I could lift myself above the floor and descend slowly, gracefully. I don't weigh enough!, I cried. Watch! They watched as I seated myself in the air and floated, eventually, tothe floor, ecstatic.

It was a rundown house. I urged myself up the few steps to the front door and knocked firmly. I wanted to visit a young boy there, Jack, with whom I'd developed a tender friendship and who was not well. His harried, disheveled mother let me inthen left me in the dark, messy house where other children moved about. I went to Jack's room, a spare jumble. He lay on a twin bed beneath a pile of clothes and blankets, and I sat opposite him onthe other bed. Still. Quiet. Then we touched soslightly, my knee against his small hand, to acknowledge us. I will soothe him, I thought, with chipperness and interest and held up a little mechanical toy. I wound it and let it buzz and turn in my hand before him.

The lake water was clear and blue and shallow. I swam then submerged with open eyes to study the pebbles scattered on the white sand bottom. I rose up with a folding knife.

At a distance, I watched as a man broke into a house and threatened a woman, who retreated to her bathroom. Her neighbors saw and wrestled him out of the house. But they didn't tell her. Oh, no! She will continue to hide, terrified, not knowingshe has been freed.

The mechanical device, like a crank, attached to the base of a tall tree lets you change the shape of its branches.

Icalled Mother on the telephone and in our talking discovered that we were renting next door to one another. We stood outside our cottages and waved to each other. Wonderful! I ran to her, but with shyness. She was on her own now, had madeher own way, though she welcomed me in, not so much as a mother but as a loved one, a loving one. I saw how she was living, messier than before, her priorities elsewhere than food and cleaning. I took this in, was learning to know her, wanted tomake her a meal. I wanted to make us a meal.

So comfortable in the working shop, I reclined on a pallet on the floor. A man carrying several blades knelt and held a covered one, curved and serrated, to my neck to show both its sharpness and my safety from it.

Because the little girl asked, with my two hands I spread my white full skirt with the bouquet painted on it and curtsied deeply to her.

John stood and the muscles and systems of his body were revealed, though his face remained the same. It was not that his skin had been removed; a layer had been placed on him. A donor had given him this. He moved and colors shifted over hischest. At that moment, an image was projected behind him, a legal form from years ago, signed by the donor of the overlay of muscles and systems. Wait!, I said, moving closer to the projection. What a coincidence! The signature was mygrandmother's as her unmarried self.

We stopped on our walk to look at a house made of large painted rocks, but our eyes were drawn to the ramshackle place next door. In its front yard, an animated young man, clothes filthy and askew, his hair wild, roamed through clutter. As hemoved, he held up a miniature cabinet. Its tiny doors were open, and he spoke into it.

Awoman entered my bookshop, but it quickly became clear she was not there to purchase a book. With her tape measure, she took the dimensions of the rugs and contemplated them as a template for her own. After she had done what she'd set outto do, she passed me where I sat at the till, disappointed and irritated. She paused at the door and returned, handing me a crudely wrapped package as a thank-you gift. I opened it to find a square of plastic-wrapped raw hamburger.

April was walking some distance ahead of me on the city sidewalk, her dark wavyhair a hedge, a broadaxe, a slice of doppler radar above her shoulders. I called out to her, I would love to be a squirrel and leap into your hair! That, she thought,was a trust exercise and fell back into my unready arms, which awkwardly caught her.

One of the doctors who were to participate in my forthcoming surgery declared that I should also have both of my index fingers removed to prevent disease. No, Isaid, no. That I will not do, and he stormed off.

Ayoung woman had offered to give me a recorder lesson. She began to speak to me, but I could not understand her. She tried again as I studied her mouth, which was like a bandshell, its several teeth like lights, its curving walls corrugated andpink. With us were two students in speech pathology, who would assist with the lesson.

Donnawashavingtroublewithher shoes.Arethey madebyField Roast?,I asked.Yes,shereplied.Ah, thenthey’retalkingshoes!,Isaid.Ihave apair.Haveyoueverlistenedtoyourshoes? Whenshesaid no,Ihunted onanearbyshelfforthelittleplug-inboxthatwould allowher shoestotell herwhatwas wrongwiththem.The office I worked in wasa comfortable place. In a playful moment, a co-worker and I created a folksong. She and I sang the refrain over and over -- I shudder with the flames because the blade is passing by, the blade is passing by.

As I loaded the tube-like applicator with a tofu and vegetable dish, I pinched a bit and tasted it. That’s so good, I thought. I would rather eat this way instead of inserting it into my vagina, as required.

Did you see him?, John asked about the dark-haired man with the silver glasses leaning against the railing of the church’s coffeehouse. Yes, I said. He’s so ethereal I can hardly stand it.

The woman wore a watch that showed how many cancers she has. Three, in her case. Three rays rose from the bottom of the watch face.

Again we returned to the house we’d sold some years earlier and entered it without permission. We washed dishes, dusted, and slept awhile on the new owners’ bed, as we’d done the previous times we’d let ourselves in. This time, as the husbandof the couple came, stunned, through the French doors, I collapsed on him, shamed and distraught, pleading, Take the key away from us!

Atoddler walked toward me ina grassy field. As it raised its head I saw that it had two faces. I will not act shocked or repulsed, I thought. I will not treat it differently. The child came near me, and I could see that one face was male, one female,but that on the female face, the features were upside down. So I took the child in my arms and held it upside down so she could see.

Christine Deavel is co-owner of Open Books, a poetry-only bookstore in Seattle. She is the author of Woodnote, published by Bear Star Press, and Box of Little Spruce, from LitRag.